Schloss Rastenfeld

Schloss Rastenfeld stands on a wooded hilltop east of Meiselding in Carinthia, its four-storey medieval walls rising above the surrounding slopes. The castle was first built in the 13th century by the Raspo family from Friesach, later expanded into a fortress called Raspenveld by 1432. After passing through several noble hands, it became a free estate in 1478 and was converted into a Renaissance-style schloss around 1530. The present owners are descendants of Carl Auer von Welsbach, the inventor who bought the property in 1893. Close by, his new castle at Welsbach was completed in 1900. The building’s massive stone core still shows its late-medieval origins, with a nearly octagonal plan and a projecting rectangular tower at one corner. The inner courtyard is narrow and irregular, entered through two late-Gothic portals with heavy stone surrounds. Original features include a round-arched main gate with wheel guards and several windows retaining their 15th-century profiles. Defensive works survive around the site, including a rare rotating gun loop in the enceinte. A short walk northeast brings the small Johannes Nepomuk chapel of 1773, built on the remains of a former watchtower. Its simple white walls conceal a painted baldachin above the apse and a 1774 tabernacle altar inside. The chapel’s onion-domed bell turret rises above the treetops, marking the spot where a medieval dungeon once stood.